His name was Lincoln, but most of the music world knew him as Sugar. Starting a recording career in the late 1960’s as part of The African Brothers band, Sugar Minott became popular as a solo artist in Jamaica during the mid-70’s. Sugar was an early pioneer of reggae’s dance hall sound; he developed a talent for writing new songs to fit over existing rhythms (which at the time was common when singers performed live but rare in the studio), often proving more popular than the original songs. His career skyrocketed in the U.K. and the U.S. after the release of “Herbman Hustling” in the early 80’s. Sugar focused his fame (and money) into championing up and coming talent through his Youth Promotion sound system. Decades later, he was still recording and touring around the world.

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KZSC’s connection to Star Trek goes back to our inception. One of our founding fathers, Marc Okrand, went on to greater fame as the creator of the Klingon language. But I digress. As the picture indicates, we are “all ears” this year at KZSC. We’ve started a series of listener surveys by asking about the KPFA morning news broadcasts. Later this year we will unveil our on-line listener survey and will be sending out surveys to current and past subscribers. We also hope to “go on the road” with a series of community meetings to talk directly with listeners in a variety of towns and cities within our broadcast area. In other words, your opinion means a lot to us. We hope to hear from you soon. You can contact us regarding programming anytime at prc@kzsc.org.

Mountain Animal Hospital are no strangers to being on the radio. Their exceptional performance on The Rising Tide program back in February showcased how this incredibly unique and cavernously loud rock band could strip down a couple of their songs and perform them in an acoustic setting without losing any of the fervor or timbre that has become their signature sound.

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Porterpalooza is an annual event put on by Residential Life  at Porter College.  It’s a chance to showcase all of the talent concentrated at Porter plus innumerable bands and performers from across the UCSC campus, all of whom come out  to play for free at Porter College. Ranging from acoustic indie songwriters to hip-hop ensembles to screaming rock balladeers and everything in between, it’s evident that the people of Porter know how to have a good time.

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When Mick Jones was booted out of The Clash in the summer of 1983, his old band claimed he’d become a lost sheep. Was it so wrong to fall under the spell of drum machines, synthesizers and sampling? One of the better pop examples of the time was 1985’s  “This is Big Audio Dynamite”, now released in an expanded 2-disc CD package. Besides the remastered original, the set includes 12-inch mixes and previously unreleased material.

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